The green case for Bitcoin

Of all the arguments against Bitcoin, one of the most popular these days is that it is bad for the planet. People who know nothing about cryptocurrencies are often heard saying that Bitcoin mining is such an energy-intensive process that it has become a major contributory factor to climate change.

This is largely bunkum. Far from being a major polluter, Bitcoin could in fact prove to be an environmental solution. But understanding that requires a little deeper knowledge of what Bitcoin is and how it is mined. So here goes.

Spelt with a small “b,” bitcoin is a digital monetary asset. Spelt with a big “B,” Bitcoin is the peer-to-peer network that timestamps bitcoin settlements (around 300,000 of them per day) while hashing them into an ongoing immutable ledger (the blockchain). Performing the significant cryptographic work of registering transactions on the distributed ledger is called mining, and miners are paid with network fees and the issuance of new bitcoin (hence, the word mining).